


Little Scars

by Amythe3lder



Series: Irregular Pieces [20]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Self-Harm, Teen Angst, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, sort of, tagging just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-31
Updated: 2015-05-31
Packaged: 2018-04-02 06:29:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4049716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amythe3lder/pseuds/Amythe3lder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><strong>Prompt: Earring</strong><br/>When he heard her intake of breath, he held his own, knowing what she’d discovered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Scars

**Author's Note:**

> This fits between chapters 13 and 14 of _Happiness Shared_. There is every indication that Greg did not have a happy childhood, so take care.
> 
> A cloaking robe of elvenkind  
> Hangs in my wardrobe behind  
> All those things that Mother said  
> Were proper for a boy  
> "A Cloak of Elvenkind"-Marcy Playground

Gregory Lestrade was feeling lots of things.

He was aware of the dusty orange corduroy of his second-or-fifth-hand couch against his shoulder and the warmth from the summer sunbeams and fingers in his grey hair and the itchy tug his stubble gave when he smiled and dragged it across Molly’s linen skirt. The last factored into why he also felt peaceful and quiet, and that was enough of a rarity that he held still and enjoyed it.

They were sprawled across the sofa and ignoring an episode of Cash in the Attic as they slowly sank into the cushions. When he heard her intake of breath, he held his own, knowing what she’d discovered. Molly Hooper, noticer of small wounds and old secrets, bent low over his head on her thigh and murmured, “Greg, your ear is pierced!”

He opened his mouth to tell her about the early eighties: about Sex Pistols albums sharing a hiding space with the book of Degas paintings that he’d nicked from the library, all tucked away safe behind his rugby gear; of living in the ruins of his parents’ marriage that had managed to be bloodless only in the least helpful sense. He would speak- a little embarrassed- of splashing a shot of his mum’s whiskey over a poster tack and stabbing himself in the thumb when he drove it through, and sucking the blood off his injured digit as it dawned on him that he didn’t actually own an earring yet. He might mumble how he had been geared up for a fight that never was, because neither of his parents actually looked at him. He would not cry himself numb over the memory of that realisation, as he had at sixteen. All of these words would issue from him and be accepted like she had already heard them, but first, what passed his startled lips was, "Um, well." He turned his face to look at her and she was beaming at him like he'd done something marvelous.

She asked, "Is it still open?" Delight made her voice a bit swoopy.

"Babe, I’ve not worn an earring in-"

"But _is_ it, though?"

He offered her a crooked, shrugging sort of smile."Yeah, it is," he sighed.

She touched her finger to the spot on his earlobe, the manifestation of his youthful angst. “Tell me?”

He did, of course. And that was the beginning.

It was almost odd. It wasn’t as if she gift-wrapped them. He had no idea where she found them, and- considering her job- he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to know. By the time he caught on that this was going to be a regular occurrence, he had already amassed a tiny collection of earrings.

Molly was cheerfully casual about the entire thing. “Hold out your hand,” she’d say, “Here,” and she would drop a pewter skull, a feather on a hook, a brass teddy bear onto his palm. She seemed to be waiting for something, expectant, and it didn’t take long for the detective inspector to figure out. The first time Molly met him at the door of Mycroft’s house and saw a tiny enamel daisy in his ear, she laughed out loud and pulled him inside with her. At this point, their third became aware of their exchanges, and it became customary for Greg to wear an earring when he had a chance to see his sweethearts.

In general, Mycroft seemed unwilling to be present for presents. Greg- and Molly too, he learned- would simply come upon things in small boxes in their locked desk drawers or in their favorite teacups. If Greg mentioned it afterward, Myc acknowledged the gifts solemnly, like he had been leaving tiny offerings at his altar. As high summer began its slow coast down to autumn, Mycroft broke this pattern slightly by having a hand in the earring shenanigans and being in the kitchen when Molly handed him a small white box. “This one is from both of us,” she explained, a bit subdued as she chewed absently on her lower lip. Behind her, Mycroft determinedly studied the soup section of a recipe book Greg was sure the younger man had never cracked before.

He opened the jeweler’s box on a single stud, a lime-coloured stone set on a gold post. “‘Peridot,’” he read aloud, hardly needing the label to recognise his son’s birthstone. “For Ward, yeah? Thank you,” he said, touched at how completely they had changed the game. “Just, thank you both.” He caught Molly in a hug on his way to Myc and took her along. When they stopped a few inches shy of the man, Mycroft looked up from the book on his island worktop and slid cautious fingers around Greg’s arm with a small smile. He answered it with one of his own and a nod for good measure, and Mycroft lit up in relief and pulled him in for a kiss.

“He was concerned you wouldn’t think it proper,” their lady translated, one corner of her mouth twitching up. Greg had solicited advice from each of them to make sure his little boy’s birthday party went smoothly next weekend. With the level of secrecy surrounding the relationship, this was as involved as his partners could be in Ward’s life, but here they had let him know they were interested. In the most literal sense, Molly and Mycroft had given him a way to fill the hole left by his own childhood with a reminder of the one he was responsible for shaping. It meant the world to him.

A few hours later he was called in to work from Mycroft’s bed. Stumbling and scrambling in the dark, he forgot one small detail in his grooming, and it was Sally Donovan who noticed it. “Boss,” she said haltingly, “is that, in your ear… Are you wearing an earring?”

**Author's Note:**

> Rare Ship Bingo! I know the timeline is getting messy, so if you're confused, click on the series. Everything is outlined on the page for Irregularities.


End file.
